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Gateway to Ship PCs with Pre-Installed DRM Music Files
Captain Chad writes "News.com has an article about Gateway's decision to bundle Pressplay's music service with its PCs. Of interest is the fact that 2000 popular songs will come pre-installed, helping reduce download time for those of us with modems." I wonder how much Pressplay is paying for this privilege. All sorts of interesting legal wrinkles here: you're buying a computer which contains data that you cannot legally access.
The poster says that the computer contains data which you cannot legally access. I would actually interpret that you can access it, you just cannot legally try to go around the protection mechanism that pressplay has put on it.
I am quite sure that there will, eventually be a very easy workaround for this. Don't companies realize that no matter what they do, somebody will crack it?
I wonder if and when music will actually get to this point where everyone buys music online? Personally I like to own the CD to have the original CD art...
Since they gave you the content, when you break the DRM for the purpose of listening to it, you're not breaking it for the purpose of copying it (necessarily). They gave you the copy on purpose...so it'd seem that tools designed to give you access to content that was given to you by the copyright owners might not be covered by the same DMCA.
"After the free trials, consumers can get the Pressplay service, which provides more than 200,000 songs and additional features, with pricing options starting from $9.95 a month. "
So basically, it's a big ad? Nothing new here.. And we all know that the files will be cracked extremely quickly (of course, some geek will have to fess up and admit to buying one of these!). No matter, they'll all be songs I wouldn't want anyway - the "pop"ular stuff that the radio plays day in and day out, no doubt.
In general, it's a good idea, but if you think about it: 5 megs on average per file (guess) x 2000 = 10,000 megs... That's a LOT of wasted space for something you're not supposed to be using until you pay for! So, yeah, I'm paying extra to waste space. Nice.
This is the saem as buying a filing cabinet with sealed papers in it. Papers which have a warning on them that "if opened, could subject you to a fine of $5000" etc. It's entrapment. Of course the users are going to want to play with the files. Then again, buying a smoke detector does not give you a legal right to extract the radioactive elements.
this will spur some people to try their best to hack this DRM system. After all, if you already have 2000 songs on your HDD you might want to access them, if just for the sport aspect ;-)
No, not necessarily. You would have to comply with the full terms of the license agreement, whatever they may be. For example, the agreement may require you to remove the files after xx days or after x uses or pay a additonal fees. I believe the article mentions a 90-day trial to access the 2,000 songs.
License more than 200 songs from mainstream and niche artists, encode them to 160Kbps MP3s, and bundle them on new i-Systems.
No DRM. No free trial. Just free music.
Mix. Burn. Repeat.
2000 "popular" DRMed songs you can listen to for 90 days, or about 300 encompassing all genres of music that you can listen to forever? Hmm.
I would have to venture that the idea here is to get new computer buyers (who we can therefore assume do not have an encompasing understanding of DRM, the legalities of file-sharing, etc...) latched into this turn-key system. I'm sure that whatever tool they're using to front-end this initiative has DRM dripping off the edges and will allow you to rip your own music to their proprietary (read:can't take it no-where else and don't even think about trying to share it P2P) format and get the user's locked in. Someone has taken a hint from M$ and is looking to get the 'Embrace and Extend' initiative rolling in the music world.
Now you may call me cynical, but I highly doubt that this tool will play nicely with standard P2P tools. Would you put it past someone like PressPlay to have any mp3's touched by the system either re-encoded in a DRM-friendly format with minimal warning to the user (click here to import all you files into the PressPlay AudioVault of Doom...)
or some obnoxious and legaly-questionable click-wrap aggreement that consists of 15 pages of legal bum-fodder that allows them to show up at your house in the middle of the night, rape your dog, kick your grandmother down the stairs and flag all the audio files on your machine with a unique fingerprint that gets matched with your machine ID and therefore your RW identity... hmm, Little Timmy has been uploading his Smurfs Christmas Album to Sweet Suzie. RIAA, sic'em!)
{/sarcasm}
Anyhow, I cannot fault Gateway for trying to provide their customers a value-added item like this (like smallpox to the Native-Americans...) I see this as becoming a troubling trend as more companies with DRM products start co-branding with big names in the PC field and set this plague loose on the face of the planet.
In the meantime, I'll stick with my ogg-vorbis/mp3 server running linux.
"If I wanted your input on my pet project, I'd stick my hand up your ass and use you like a sock-puppet." - Muse
I do find it interesting that computer makers are making it easier to rip and burn, while supplying pressplay et al inside it. This bothers me a bit. There has to be something backroom-ish going on. I agree all things equal, it may make the college freshman grab one, but other than that I see no special reason for it. So what are they getting out of it? Advertising, sure, but whatabout pressplay logging? You think they are sharing their logs with Gateway so they can determine what songs to put on the next generation of PC's? Maybe Gateway just wants to see how much their computers are actually used for the digital music they push so much in their adverts. Either way, I don't like multi company bundling. It just smacks of small print consumer stick-it-to-em EULA's.
'I don't want more choices. I just want better things.' - Edina Monsoon
my cable box comes with the ability to recieve all of the channels too, whats the legal implication there?
Its illegal to decrypt them without permission. Doesn't mean that the law is right. I personally agree that the law makes sense, but people are free to disagree with me and try to convinve their elected representatives to change this law.
But this is just because of percieved cost to them. It costs them money to send me signals. In the case of data that's already on my hard disk, it doesn't cost any more to supply decrypted data than it does to supply encrypted data, yet they want to charge me the full cost of the media just to decrypt it for me.
... to the Microsoft Tax when we buy a machine loaded with cruft we have no intention of using?
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
I would hook the boot HD up to a different computer, extract all the songs onto it and format the drive on the gateway afterwords. Never once did you boot thier install of the OS that has the license agreement. And since they "gave" you the songs on your computer you're free to do what you want with them. I.E. remove DRM and enjoy in OGG format.
"All sorts of interesting legal wrinkles here: you're buying a computer which contains data that you cannot legally access. "
So what? I bought a name brand PC a few weeks ago that came with Quicken Deluxe on it, to be used only if I have bought the reg key.
The real issue here is that this won't work: within two weeks of these bad boys hitting the street, there will be dozens of postings on how to circumvent Pressplay's reg/purchase code strategy and gain access to all of the music, just as I can go to any one of dozens of sites for hacks into getting my unregistered copy of Quicken to work. I wouldn't do this, of course: no no, not me....
There's a metaphor here from Apocalypse Now: the Bridge at Do Long. Every day the Americans would rebuild the bridge, and every night the Vietnamese would blow it up. Each new tack by the RIAA and its DMCA cronies to secure rights in this fashion will be defeated, sometimes within minutes of hitting the street.
This points to the need for them to dynamite their business model and think up something new: how many people actually pay for content? (And porn doesn't count. Besides, porn is largely stolen anyway!) The answer is none, zero, nada. AOL-TimeWarner's about to find this out the hard way. Gateway and Pressplay are making it easier than some to circumvent by the fact that the files are on your machine, and you can ostensibly do what you want to with them without them knowing. But even if you had to download them, you'll still be able to hack them.
"Don't matter how New Age you get, old age is gonna kick your ass." - Utah Phillips
I don't know if this is feasible, but why not just provide enough copy protection for a certain period, but then stipulate that when someone unlocks the content, the copy protection period is over?
When you think about it, part of the problem with the situation is that the various record companies want perpetual, or close to perpetual control of the content. If people could access the content in only a copy controlled manner, for say, one month, I would argue that this is an entirely appropriate length of time given how the Internet affects distribution. It seems that this would result in many more releases and a greater diversity of both music, and copy control technology. After all, if every company used exactly the same mechanism, it would greatly increase the likelihood of the copy protection getting broken.
Then, the companies could pay certain groups to both provide the latest new method of copy protection and not help to break it. Look what recently happened with WMA, and how it reflects this type of model. Microsoft could now pay the company that last broke the protection to develop a new one that would last for a longer time.
In essence, let's have copy protection, but only for as long as it naturally lasts.
With my new dual USB iBook, on the default install, there's something like 600 megs of MP3's by various big name artists (can't remember them all, since I reloaded with my new 10.2 cd I forgot to back them up), spoken word stuff from Henry Rollins I remember, perhaps someone else can fill /. in on what's all on there. Pretty neat I think.
Yep, they're 100% unencrypted, copy them anywhere MP3 files. They're installed when you do a full system restore. No DRM here. Not needed or wanted.
Gateway computers come with a recovery CD, don't they? (at least my friend's did). So what happens if something goes wrong and you lose your hard drive - since you paid to listen to those songs (through advertising, upped computer price, or through the 'free' trial), do you get them back? Do you have to redownload the 2000 songs you have 90 days free access to? I doubt they have a couple of DVDs of music in the box, ready to be reinstalled for you...
I can see some poor suck^M^M^M^Muser calling the tech support people crying for her Britney! *ack, the horror*
Disney Interactive about 4-7 years ago used to include entire programs with its computers but would disable them until you paid an online payment to them.
This is way back though. I just remember trying to figure out how to get through the disabling so I could play... Never figured it out. (I was really young then.) All I knew is that if you signed up with them (it would dial a long distance number and give your info to them), the programs would become active.
Perhaps now with the internet, more people will go out of their way to break the DRM, but I am willing to say most will either pay to listen to them, or just continue downloading like they always have using morpheus or something similar.
~ kjrose
If they're going to take up storage real estate on a hard drive where you own the platters, but you can't use the data legally, they owe you compensation for the space they're stealing from you.
In short, charge them a monthly fee for having their data on your hard disk drive. Many companies do that as their primary business--selling external storage.
The sooner such practices as this bankrupt the businesses at fault, the sooner the practices go away.
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
Ah, right you are. Anyway, $800 is still hundreds of dollars more than an equivalent PC (after all, the CRT iMac's hardware is getting pretty vintage).
My mistake, but my point still remains. The music isn't free -- you *do* pay for it.